If you conducted a case study on one single patient that regularly misses their appointment, what would you find? While reasons vary for missed appointments, sometimes just putting yourself in your patient’s shoes can reveal the answer. Let’s create two case studies to analyze how you can improve patient care and decrease no-shows.
Case Study Example #1
Mary regularly misses her hospital appointments for her chronic pain. If we sit down with Mary and get to the root of why she misses these appointments, what would we find?
- Mary struggles to find transportation to the hospital. With her chronic health issues, Mary can’t drive herself so she has to make arrangements
- Mary is concerned that when she arrives to the hospital she will not be able to find someone who can push her in a wheelchair or fears she will get lost in the hospital by herself
- The appointments created anxiety for Mary, so much so that she would talk herself out of going to her appointments
Case Study Example #2
Paul regularly misses his dentist appointments. Paul believes in visiting his dentist every 6 months, which is the standard, yet he is constantly rescheduling with his office. Why does this happen?
- Paul is reminded of his appointment, which he made six months ago, only one day in advance.
Paul finds there are regular conflicts with his schedule and he chooses to prioritize over the dentist appointment - Paul doesn’t think about his dentist or his appointment six months away, so when he is reminded he feels surprised
- Paul doesn’t see the value in keeping his dentist appointment so he constantly reschedules
AppointmentReminders.com could have a significant impact in both of these case studies. An automated appointment reminder program like appointmentreminders.com can do so much more than send reminders. You can send your patients surveys to get honest feedback which can be used to improve patient care. You can also use the program to send snippets of information throughout the year to your patients to keep your practice “in front” of them. Essentially this will serve as a reminder without reminding constantly.
Apart from these great benefits, appointmentreminders.com will also save your staff significant time every day when they don’t have to make those “standard” reminder phone calls. Find out if our program is right for your practice (and we’re sure it is!). Start your free trial here.
